Tuesday, I gave into what felt like defeat and went to the doctor to pursue medication for my depression. I feared the appointment over the next 24 hours, but also realized I had gotten to a point where I was truly not functioning as a person. I was barely getting through the necessities of life and simply couldn't face anything else. I felt like I was being swallowed up by darkness and just wanted to get out.
In the examination room, my worst fears played out through the conversation with my doctor. While he listened patiently to me explain the current situation, he sighed and responded, "We've had these conversations before. Susan, you have depression. You will always have depression. You can either choose to treat it or continue in these cycles, but it is only going to get worse if you ignore it. You took yourself off the medication because you felt better, and now you have gotten to a point of crisis again. This will continue every time you choose to stop treatment. You will need to be on medication the rest of your life."
For the first few hours after the appointment, I truly felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Or the face. Or kicked in the teeth. Or maybe all 3. I felt beaten. This was the diagnoses I had dreaded. This was the statement I had anxiously feared at 2am when my mind would keep me awake. This was what had me in a perpetual state of panic trying to fix what was wrong with me, always coming up with a new plan that would solve this problem. He said aloud what I had heard whispered in my head for years.
While I wouldn't recommend him as a counselor, he is an excellent doctor and he was simply telling me truth in a way I couldn't ignore it. See, we had been in this cycle and I was one of those obnoxious patients that stops taking medicine and then wonders why the symptoms come back. But unlike the person with high blood pressure or bad teeth, I saw treatment as failure. I saw medicine as giving up. I saw life long illness as condemnation. Something had to be wrong with me if I was a depressed person. I'm supposed to have the "joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart." While high blood pressure is in your genes, depression was of my own making. Wasn't it?
It took his heavy handed approach to make me come to terms with how I saw myself. He flat out asked me: "Where does all this pride come from? It isn't helping you at all."
Not only was my depression my problem to fix, failure to fix it meant that I couldn't do anything else in life. Everything I wanted for my future was on hold until I got this depression thing under control. But I didn't want treatment. I wanted a cure. I wanted it gone. I wanted to be free of the darkness.
A funny thing happened as I processed his assessment of the situation. I thought of all the people I knew who had life long illnesses and how they dealt with them. I thought of how much respect I held for their joy within the difficulty, their courage to deal with their issues head-on, their personal responsibility they took for their health and treatment. For those people, they could live a joyful life and be sick for all their days here on earth. For those people, they could be wholly themselves, even with a brokenness that couldn't be fixed in this lifetime. And while they would choose to be without it if they could, they used their illness to see the healing hand of Christ - even though they weren't fully healed.
Today is known as Good Friday - the day Jesus entered the darkness on our behalf. The day He gave into death, so that death would die. But it is only on this side of the resurrection that we can call it "Good". That day and the Saturday that followed were dark - both because the sky turned black and because all who loved Jesus watch Him die and be buried. The physical and spiritual realms were dark.
On this side of Easter, we can call the darkness good, because we know it isn't the final word. We know that light remains on the other side. We know Sunday came - and eternity is coming.
With a life long illness, I can no longer look for a cure in this life, but I can see the other forms of healing already offered to me. I can no longer try to fix myself, but I can enter life with joy for all the days I've been given. And I can humbly abandon my thought that "I am better than this" and instead take personal responsibility for my treatment. I can enter into the darkness, knowing there is light on the other side.
And for the first time, in a long time, it isn't fear that I feel.
It is hope.
